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This year has been a long, bumpy and winding road for U.S. equity markets. They took a severe hit from the financial crisis, then got back half of what they lost in the stock market rally that followed. As the year ends, the Standard & Poor's 500 sits almost 25% higher than where it was when 2009 began. As for the decade, the index is 23% lower than where it stood 10 years ago.

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Lee Seong Tae, governor of the Bank of Korea, said the central bank will watch closely for any side effects from its loose monetary policy, but benchmark interest rates will be managed to support the economy. "There's a need to strengthen the growth engine of the private sector," Lee said in his New Year's speech text. However, the South Korean central bank must be "cautious on the possibility of an imbalance in the economy due to a prolonged accommodative monetary policy."

The U.S. Treasury plans to inject an additional $3.8 billion into GMAC Financial Services, mostly to shore up its home-mortgage operations. The money will bring the government's investment to $17.2 billion, providing 56.3% ownership. GMAC said most of the latest injection will go toward its residential-mortgage business, including a restructuring of its money-losing ResCap unit.

Joaquin Almunia, economic and monetary affairs commissioner at the EU, said financial markets have had enough regarding the debt level of Greece and a few other nations. "The markets reach a point where they say enough is enough," Almunia said. In certain cases, he said, investors are calling for governments to reduce debt or they will cut off lending.

In a message for the new year, U.K. Prime Minister Gordon Brown said the fragile economic recovery must not be jeopardized by aggressive efforts to reduce the budget deficit. "The recovery is still fragile, and it needs to be nurtured in the interests of those who were hit hardest by the recession," Brown said.

It is almost certain that sometime next year, China's rapidly expanding economy will overtake Japan's. Some economists are wondering whether China will endure Japan's experience, turning its economy into a huge overheated bubble that then deflates into a decade-long slump. So far, it looks as if China will avoid that peril. The country has begun a long-term shift from almost total dependence on the export sector to development of domestic consumption, which should make its growth more sustainable.